Light and Heavy Transport

It’s the heaviness of the Mac that allows iOS to remain light. - John Gruber

What a computer is to me is it’s the most remarkable tool that we’ve ever come up with, and it’s the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds.” - Steve Jobs (originally c. 1980, read the article by Steve Sinofsky about the origin and interpretation of the quote)

So closing the loop, rather than using transport as a metaphor for computation, maybe we should be using computers as a metaphor for transport.

It is the heaviness of the car and the truck that allows the bike to remain light. - This post.

Like the relative time spent on smartphones and PCs, bikes should outnumber cars and trucks and be used far more often.

This is to say, we should use the right tool for the job, and that is rarely using 2.0 tons of metal to move 0.1 tons of sentient meat 2 km. B

ut despite the bicycle proponents somewhat humorous photos, it also doesn't mean moving refrigerators via two-wheelers.

The internet provides an image of a person carrying a refrigerator on their back like a backpack while riding a bicycle.

The modes serve different purposes. People giving up their cars and relying on walking, biking, public transport and delivery and the occasional taxi, which far more people should do, require there exist tools (specific vehicle models) specialised for delivery and transport. These tools should be properly optimised for their jobs (recognising that what is optimal for yesterday is not optimal for today, and what is optimal for today is not optimal for tomorrow).

The challenge is to find an optimum for today, and move toward it, without foreclosing options for the future.